Cleaning House

I gleefully stayed in doors for much of this bone-chilling Sunday, only venturing out of the apartment a couple of times to get some food and do a little impromptu Christmas Tree shopping (yes, this little Jewish girl went trolling for trees.) It's not going in my apartment, but in my boyfriend's for our second annual Tree-trimming party in a couple of weeks. It's good clean fun.

Speaking of clean, my boyfriend spent the day cleaning up his apartment and doing good productive things that he had been putting off, which inspired me to do a little catching up of my own. I had fallen a bit behind on recording some of my blog entries, so I finally sat down to write, write, write.

Now I'm on a roll and I want to make a pre-New Year's resolution to not allow myself to fall behind again in my blog. I'm also going to resolve to do some more writing outside of this blog so that I can get the ball rolling on other projects that I've been keeping on the back burner.

In the meantime, I'm trying to enjoy the here and now. The holidays are going to come and go before I even know what hit me - and I find that writing in my daily blog is a great way to review what it is that I've done with my day, and helps to keep the weeks from flying by too fast and turning into one great big indistinguishable blur.

Here's to keep up and keeping my life from flashing before my very eyes!

Getting Dresses For Successes

Now that I'm going to more and more auditions these days, I want to make sure that I always look my best. I've been seeing more and more girls wearing dresses to auditions. No one will argue that a form-flattering dress is more often than not, the way to go - especially if you are going in for the role of an ingenue.

A friend of mine and fellow improviser always has the most adorable dresses. I've complimented her on them on more than one occasion. The line of dresses is called Butter by Nadia. I couldn't think of a better kind of dress to get for auditions and performances, so when my friend told me that they were having a sample sale this weekend in Red Hook, Brooklyn - I said, I'm there!

The dresses which are normally priced in the mid $100-$200 range, were between $50 and $125. Considerably more affordable for us starving artists, although still a bit of a splurge. After about an hour of trying on everything that I could get my hands on, I ended up with a "vixen" red "Convertible Fanny" and a "Signature Wrap" in "evergreen."

What's absolutely fabulous about these dresses is that you can tie them up and fashion them is all sorts of different styles. It's like having 12 different dresses in one!

I have that agent showcase coming up on Tuesday night and I plan on wearing my red dress to that. I can hardly wait to wear my pretty dress! I feel like such a girly girl!

Holiday (N)ACEs

Tonight we five principles from the cast of "The Spotlight" climbed into a mini van and headed out to the promised land of Lyndhurst, New Jersey - more specifically, The San Carlo, for a very special "Holiday Spotlight with Sean Taylor."

This was our very first corporate gig for Spotlight - and hopefully the first of many. We brought along a couple of cameras to document the thing and hopefully capture some decent footage with which to assemble a promotional video for future paid gigs. I mean getting opportunities to perform improv is really sweet and all - but getting paid to do improv takes things to a whole other level. We were psyched!

When we arrived we discovered our audience of Corrosion Engineers and their wives tucked away in a small room on the lower level of the catering hall. What I had failed to realize was that there would be a few members of our audience who were under the age of 5. Uh oh! Better keep it clean guys!

Despite having to compete with the sounds of stomping of feet and Top 40 music happening in the rooms above ours, we managed to pull off quite a successful show! The kids (ages three and-a-half, four and four) ended up making precious little guests for the second half of our show.

A fine time was had by all and we were told that they would happily bring us back next year!

And The Award Goes To...

So I didn't win "Best of Show" for my video at tonight's "First Annual Slicey Awards of Pizza Month 2008" - but I'm not a sore loser. Here's the video that won...

Everything went very smoothly from start to finish and fun was had by all. Before the ceremony I assembled the Slicey Award with my own two hands with some hot glue and a lot of crazy glue. Despite almost gluing my own hands to it's smooth silicone body, it came out quite well!

It seems that Pizza Month 2008 is finally behind us, but the warm fuzzy memories of delicious pizza shall remain!

Pre-Slicey Preparations

Today I did a bit of research on dance classes in town. I need to get my butt in gear by strapping on some dance shoes. I've never been an amazing dancer, but I figure that if I'm going to be considered for a part that requires any type of movement at all - I had better be able to shake my tail feather without looking like a total quack. I'm considering taking lessons at this place.

I mean, it has the word Broadway in it. I take that as a good sign!

In other news: Tomorrow is the big day for our Pizza Month 2008 Awards ceremony where the best of the best pizza joints in town will be crowned! That is also when the rest of the Pizza Month videos will be screened. Exciting!

Today I went to Bed Bath and Beyond to make a couple of purchases for the "Slicey Award." This is going to be our little trophy that will be given to the editor of the best Pizza Month video.
We wanted to make something in the vein of an Oscar with a pizza cutter, so this is what I picked up...

Pretty cute, eh?

May the best "slicer" win!

Getting Back Into The Sing of Things

I returned to my audition class feeling a bit brighter and more energized than last week. I brought back my ballad and up tempo with much clearer results. The Casting Director gave me some really helpful feedback too. One thing he has helped me realize - and I don't think that anyone else has ever pointed this out to me before, other than my mother that is: I need to smile more when I sing.

I think that I have a naturally somber looking face, so much so that people on the street have said to me, "Hey, it's not that bad! Smile!"
This usually prompts me to tell them to want to fuck off - I'm fine, dammit! But, it turns out, they were right all along. Guess I owe all of those random dudes on the street an apology.

"Let us see you enjoy singing the song" the CD told me.
Wow! I think I had one of the biggest revelations I've had in a long while!

Everything is really starting to come together for all of us and it's overall been a very positive experience. I'm going to be sad to see this class go, but hopefully some of us will keep in touch and I'll have some friendly faces to run into around the city when I go on auditions.

I'm incredibly excited and nervous for our agent showcase next week. I'm going to be keeping my fingers crossed. I just want them to like me! Really really like me!

Patient Practice

I've been battling back this cold all week long and while my voice is mostly back - I still have what feels like residual residue hanging out in my little gullet. Yech! It's nothing I can't sing through. A few more cups of tea and bottles of water should do the trick. My tea and water consumption was at an all time high a few days ago, but I have since dialed it down a notch. My bladder needs a break already.

Anyway, tomorrow night is my last "class" session for the musical theater audition seminar - yikes! These past few weeks sure have flown by! Today I've been gearing myself up for it by working on my songs, especially now that I have my voice back.

What's most important is that I get a good night's rest tonight so that I feel ready and fresh as a daisy for tomorrow's class. I think I'll be okay.